Raccoon and Crawfish

Apä’cĭmĭn (Acorn of the Red Oak, John V. Satterlee, Menominee) and Alanson Skinner

Na’na’kao, the crawfish, had a permanent village under the water in a large lake. One day he
thought to himself, “I guess I’ll take a trip and see what the world is like,” so he crawled out on
the dry land and followed along the beach. He crawled and crawled until he got halfway around, when he stopped a while to look.

In the meantime, A’sipun, the raccoon, came strolling along in the opposite direction. As
he traveled, he kept his eyes fixed ahead of him, and he saw something moving. He watched it
and made out that it was Crawfish. “Oh, nimaa, this Crawfish is out on dry land.” Then he
thought to himself, “I wonder how I can fool him, I am surely going to meet him. Oh, I know.”

So Raccoon scuttled into the woods and got some rotten wood which he stuck up his
nostrils, daubed on his mouth and filled up his eyes. Then he laid down on the shore and
pretended to be dead.